Volume Twelve - Pre-Victorian to the Present Day - further aspects - Report upon Penarth Dock - 1984 . . .

No plans or details of the original west wall appear to exist, however, these would only be of academic interest anyway since the solid west wall complete with graving dock entrance was demolished between 1883 and 1884 to make way for the dock extension.

When the dock extension was opened the north wall was extended by an additional 800 feet of solid wall, a cross section of which is shown in figure 9. The cost of building this section of wall excluding the cost of the necessary excavation was £26 1s. per linear foot (or 17s. per cubic yard).

Figure 9 - Section through solid quay wall.

3.2.2 - Arched Walls

The arched retaining walls at Penarth Dock represented by far the largest amount of wall length at the dock. In all there was some 4,000 feet of arched wall as opposed to 1,100 feet of solid wall. In fact all four sides of the basin, the east side of the main dock and all the north side of the dock (prior to it's extension) were built using arched walls.

This type of wall is particularly unusual with Penarth Dock being one of the first to use it. (The other dock notable for it's arched walls was Albert Dock at Hull. This was also designed by John Hawkshaw and bears many similarities with Penarth Dock.

The extreme size of the base of the arch and the large amount of filling over the arch gave the wall tremendous stability, particularly important when considering the nature of the site. Although the amount of masonry used was less than for a similar solid wall of the same height, the amount of face-work, the dressing of the arch stones and the turnng of the arches made the arched wall far more costly than the solid wall.